that came to her, yet very few came." In the first days of their reign, William and Mary agreed upon the destruction and the reconstruction of the principal suite of staterooms of the historical palace, Hampton Court. It was the custom, at this time, for presentations to be made to the queen after service, when she was coming out of Hampton Court-chapel. Lord Clarendon writes, "In the evening, March 3rd, 1689, my brother Laurence came to me, and told me that he had been to Hampton Court, where king William had, at last, presented him to the queen, but it was in the crowd as she came from churchhe kissed her hand, and that was all."1 The veteran diplomatist, Danby, was extremely sedulous in his visits to Lambeth, hoping to induce archbishop Sancroft to crown the new sovereigns. The archbishop refused to crown either the king or queen, and, as well as lord Clarendon, persisted that he could not take any new oath of allegiance. Four of the bishops, who had been sent to the Tower by king James II., with two others of their episcopal brethren,' and several hundreds of the lower English clergy-among whom may be reckoned the revered names of Beveridge, Nelson, Stanhope, and Sherlock-followed the example of their primate, and forsook livings, property, and preferments, rather than violate their consciences, by breaking the oath they had sworn to the former sovereign.3 By the great body of the people, they 1 Clarendon Diary, vol. ii. p. 267. 2 Archbishop Sancroft; Dr. Kenn, bishop of Bath and Wells; Dr. Francis Turner, bishop of Ely; Dr. Lake, bishop of Chichester; Dr. White, bishop of Peterborough, and Dr. Lloyd, bishop of Norwich, were the non-juring prelates who refused to take oaths of allegiance to William and Mary. 3 Lloyd, bishop of St. Asaph, and Trelawney, bishop of Bristol, not only followed the revolutionary movement, but had been its agents. History continually shows, that although the human character is not always consistent in greatness of mind, it usually is so in meanness; it was not probable that Trelawney would sacrifice his interest to any scruple of obligation when he obtained were infinitely reverenced; but from the triumphant party they obtained the rather ill-sounding designation of nonjurors or non-swearers. Although English ears are not delicate as to musical concord, they are remarkably so in regard to syllabic melody. The art of calling ill-sounding names has, therefore, been in all ages successfully practised by politicians in England. Queen Mary herself made some attempts at this easy but witless department of the war of words. For instance, she gave sir Roger l'Estrange, a literary partizan of her father, the cognomen of Lying Strange Roger. Her majesty deemed it was an anagram of his name; but her superfluous letters would puzzle the orthography of the adepts in making anagrams, or any other kind of word-twisting. Her late chaplain, Dr. Kenn, bishop of Bath and Wells, expressed himself indignantly, regarding her personal demeanour, at this juncture. He refused to quit his bishopric, or take the oaths to her. Queen Mary sarcastically observed, "Bishop Kenn is desirous of martyrdom in the nonjuring cause, but I shall disappoint him." There was his preferment by such prostrations as are in the following letter. James II. preferred too many such persons to ecclesiastical dignities, hoping that they would be pliable to his views. It was the worst injury he did to the church of England: "THE REV. JONATHAN TRELAWNEY, TO LAWRENCE HYDE EARL OF ROCHESTER." "My lord, "Give me leave to throw myself at your lordship's feet, humbly imploring your patronage if not for the bishopric of Peterborough, at least for Chichester, if the bishop of Exeter cannot be prevailed on to accept that now vacant see. Let me beseech your lordship to fix him there, and advance your creature (meaning himself) to Exeter, where I can serve the king (James II.) and your lordship. My estate must break to pieces if I find no better prop than the income of Bristol, not greater than 300%. If Peterborough and Chichester shall be both refused me, I shall not deny Bristol. But I hope the king (James II.) will have some tender compassion on his slave. "July 10, 1685." "J. TRELAWNEY. great political wisdom in this observation; yet there are few persons who would not have felt grieved at standing low in the estimation of a man whose moral worth ranked so high as that of Kenn. An early opportunity occurred for the queen to reward the revolutionary services of Burnet, by his promotion to the valuable see of Salisbury. There was a great choice of rewards of the kind at the queen's disposal, for no less than six prelates of the reformed church of England died in the beginning of the year 1689. The queen exercised her functions, as the "dual head” of the church, by a personal exhortation to the following effect:-"That she hoped that I (Burnet) would set a pattern to others, and would put in practice those notions with which I had taken the liberty sometimes to entertain her." The awkwardness and ungraciousness of this allusion to his "notions" and "liberty taken," are the faults of his style of expression, in which he was certainly inferior to the queen; the words are, however, precisely as he has left them.' The queen concluded her admonitions with a careful proviso regarding Mrs. Burnet's habiliments. "She recommended to me," he adds, "the making my wife an example to the clergymen's wives, both in the simplicity and plainness of her clothes, and in the humility of her deportment." " It is needful to mention here briefly, that the "notions" commended by her majesty were so very little to the taste of the English people, or the flock over which he extended his crosier, that his inaugural pastoral letter was condemned to be burnt by the common hangman; and accordingly it was thus executed by order of parliament—the national pride of England being aroused by a "notion" as untrue as it was insolent—the new bishop having declared that William and Mary exercised their regal power by right of conquest—a 2 2 Ibid. remarkably distasteful clause to the victors of Solebay. The execution of Dr. Burnet's sermon was not the only case of the kind in this reign. The lords sentenced a book published by Bentley, to be burnt by the common hangman in Old Palace Yard, intituled, "King William and Queen Mary Conquerors."1 The coronation of the joint-sovereigns next occupied the thoughts of every one at their court. The former regalia with which queens-consort were inaugurated was not deemed sufficiently symbolical of the sovereign power shared by Mary II., and a second globe, a sceptre, and a sword of state, were made for her. The queen-consort's crown was, however, considered proper for her use, and she was crowned with the beautiful diadem which her father had caused to be made for his queen, Mary Beatrice. An alteration of far greater import was effected in the coronation-ceremony. The oath was altered decidedly to a protestant tendency, and the sovereigns of England were no longer required to make their oath and practice diametrically opposite.3 2 The morning of April 11th brought a multitude of cares and agitations to the triumphant sovereigns in addition to the ceremony to which the day had been devoted. Just as their robing was completed, and they were about to set off for Westminster-hall, news arrived of the successful landing of James II. at Kinsale, in Ireland, and that he had taken peaceable possession of the whole island, with the exception 'MS. Journal of the House of Lords, 1693. 2 Regal Records, by J. Planché, Esq. Menin; and above all, the abstract of the coronation-service forwarded to the princess Sophia at Hanover, just after the coronation of James II., shows the coronation oath before the alteration was made. King's MSS. Brit. Museum. 3 The fact that the ancient catholic coronation-oath, taken by queen Elizabeth, was likewise administered to the Stuart sovereigns is now firmly established; the very alteration here effected proves it, if any one doubts the evidence that exists. At the same mo of Londonderry and a few other towns. ment the lord-chamberlain, lord Nottingham, delivered to queen Mary the first letter her father had written to her since her accession. It was an awful one, and the time of its reception was awful. King James wrote to his daughter, "That hitherto he had made all fatherly excuses for what had been done, and had wholly attributed her part in the revolution to obedience to her husband, but the act of being crowned was in her own power, and if she were crowned while he and the prince of Wales were living, the curses of an outraged father would light upon her, as well as of that God who has commanded duty to parents." If queen Mary were not confounded by this letter, king William certainly was. Lord Nottingham, who recorded the scene as an eye-witness, declares “that the king forthwith thought fit to enter into a vindication of himself from having, by harsh authority, enforced the course of conduct which had brought on his wife her father's malediction, and he took the opportunity of declaring "that he had done nothing but by her advice, and with her approbation." It was on this memorable occasion that, irritated by the ill news of her father's formidable position, the queen recriminated, "that if her father regained his authority, her husband might thank himself, for letting him go as he did." These words were reported to James II., who from that hour believed, to use his own words, "that his daughter wished some cruelty or other to be perpetrated against him." 3 The alarming news of the arrival of her father in Ireland was communicated to the princess Anne likewise, while she was dressing for the coronation. The political prospects of the Orange party seemed gloomy, and the ladies at the 1 MSS. of lord Nottingham, printed in Dalrymple's Appendix. 2 Ibid. |